


But Listen to the Color of Your Dreams (It is Not Leaving)

by Meilan_Firaga



Series: Surrealist Lyrics [2]
Category: Kong: Skull Island (2017)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Other, Pining, Self-Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-18
Updated: 2019-06-18
Packaged: 2020-05-14 09:06:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19270099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meilan_Firaga/pseuds/Meilan_Firaga
Summary: It was different coming onto the island from the sea instead of the air. He came ashore at dawn when everything was still shrouded in mist. Skull Island was like something out of a dream. And James Conrad had come to know an awful lot about dreams as of late.





	But Listen to the Color of Your Dreams (It is Not Leaving)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sweetcarolanne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetcarolanne/gifts).



It was different coming onto the island from the sea instead of the air. When he’d first arrived the view had been nothing short of breathtaking. The mountain peaks rising up before him were something else entirely from sea level. He came ashore at dawn when everything was still shrouded in mist. Skull Island was like something out of a dream. The boat he’d hired lucked into just enough of a break in the storm to make it to Skull Island’s shores. He wasn’t sure they’d have the same kind of luck getting back when they left him standing on the beach, but he forced himself to push the thought from his mind. Their fate couldn’t be where his focus was occupied.

With his bag slung over his shoulder, James Conrad set off into the jungle.

There was something comforting about being back in the wild. He was at his best when he was in the thick of things, whether that was battle or nature. He knew what he was doing there. He could keep his wits about him under any sort of encounters out in the wild. His emotions would take a back seat to survival instinct. Thoughts of monsters or gods or kings could be pushed deep into the recesses of his mind in the interest of watching his step and listening for local wildlife. Since sorting his turbulent emotions was the entire point of returning the situation was fairly ideal. If he was worried about surviving he couldn’t keep focusing on the dreams—or the panting state of arousal they left him in.

The boat had clearly been blown off course from his originally planned landing site. He was a good deal further south, but that had the benefit of getting him closer to familiar terrain. He found the remains of one of their helicopters in the first few hours, already partially overgrown with vegetation. It wasn’t one of the wrecks that Packard had found while they were there. There were dog tags hanging from one of the safety harnesses. He dropped them into his pack and searched the wreck, coming up with another pair that he also stashed away.

He never saw what bit him.

He hiked for the better part of the day at a pace that he’d never have been able to keep with companions. Alone and moving steadily he estimated that he could cross the entire island from south to north in just about four days so long as he didn’t have any complications, so tracking an ape the size of a skyscraper who lived in the island’s jungle should be a piece of cake. All he needed to do was get to higher ground and get a better bearing on his location. If he was lucky he might even be able to spot his target and call the search early. He’d been thinking about that plan, halfway up a ridge to a better vantage point, when he started to feel dizzy.

That it happened at the chopper wreck was the best he could figure. Apparently, he wasn’t as focused on survival as he’d thought. He treated it with a few things from his medkit, tilting his head from side to side as he regarded the clotted tooth marks just above his left ankle. He didn’t recognize the formation—not that he was surprised given his location. Still, the wound wasn’t showing any early signs of serious poisoning. There was a chance he was only feeling dizzy because he’d been exposed to animal saliva he’d never encountered before and his body would fight it off without a problem. That theory lasted until he reached the top of the ridge just as the sun was going down. Even on a strange island full of monsters the sunset isn’t supposed to look blue.

It set upon him quickly once he’d stopped. The plan had been to take a short break and then head back down the ridge to a cave he’d spotted to shelter until whatever was wrong passed. The shivering started just minutes after he sat down in spite of the sweat beading on his brow. He fumbled through setting up a camp that was far too exposed, taking the time to lay a perimeter that would hopefully wake him should anything try to eat him. After that it was all he could do to pull the blanket out of his pack and get himself covered before the shaking got so bad that he couldn’t maintain focus on anything.

The dreams he’d been trying so hard to avoid slammed into his mind with full force as the fever led him into unconsciousness. He drifted for a time on a sea of blackness before his subconscious began to shape the things that haunted him. It was eyes he saw first—massive, lonely, and the most incredible shade of chocolate brown. There was nothing but those eyes for what felt like an eternity, intense against an impressionist blur of muted grays and blues. Those eyes made his stomach swoop and his heart pound, and though some part of him knew they were a figment of his imagination the rest of him could feel nothing but a twisting knot of nerves surging through his body. Were he conscious, his face would be tomato red with a mixture of shame and arousal just from the thought of those eyes.

Slowly the eyes of his dream coalesced into a vision of the ape’s entire form. He’d seen and done a number of things in his life, but Conrad had never encountered anything quite so magnificent as Kong before his adventure on Skull Island. In the dark recesses of his mind the creature cradled him in one of those massive hands against his scarred chest, favoring him with a gentle regard that was both exactly like the care he showed to all the creatures under his domain and at the same time something altogether  _ more _ . In his dreams the man could pretend for just a little while that he might be more than an insignificant speck in the creature’s incredible life, though he was sure somewhere in the loneliest parts of his psyche that Kong feeling any sort of softness and affection for him was nothing more than the desperate hope of a broken man.

When he finally came to, Conrad found himself lying on a mat on the floor of what he recognized as Marlow’s former home in the Iwi village. His clothes had been replaced with breezy local fare, though he could see them folded neatly in a corner. His lower leg was wrapped in a bandage holding a poultice of leaves and herbs to his skin. He wasn’t a stranger to tribal medicine, but much like the bite mark he didn’t recognize the particular concoction he’d been gifted. He was, however, very sure that it had done its job. Aside from the general weakness that followed any illness he felt perfectly fine. One of the Iwi came through the door, favoring him with a pleased nod when they saw him getting to his feet.

“Thank you,” he croaked out when he straightened. His throat was incredibly dry, and he had to clear it before he continued. “Thank you for rescuing me.”

The Iwi shook their head—a foreign gesture that they’d clearly learned from Marlow—and pointed toward the door. Conrad frowned. Monarch couldn’t have gotten together a pursuit party fast enough to get to him before he would have died of exposure. He wasn’t even sure that they would make an attempt to do so given that he was only one man and their resources were limited. The Iwi gestured again to the door, more adamantly insisting that he should follow their directions. Slowly he made his way to the door, careful to avoid the weak spot of flooring he remembered from his previous visit, and stepped out into the pre-dawn light on the deck of The Wanderer. He couldn’t see much beyond the village wall in the darkness, but he could there was enough light from the lightening sky above to understand how he’d come to be in the care of the natives.

There, sleeping upright against one of the surrounding mountains, was Kong.

Conrad’s heart fluttered in his chest as the pieces fell into place. He had, perhaps, not been entirely unconscious as he suffered the fever his injury had brought upon him. The dream of being carried in a giant hand suddenly resolved in his mind into memory. He could feel the rough leather of Kong’s palm beneath his body again for a moment as he dragged the night’s events from where they’d mingled with hallucination. It was the King of Skull Island that had brought him to the village, the King who’d reached to the top of the wall to see him brought into human care, the King who’d stroked one massive finger down the length of his body in a gentle caress before retreating to await the morning. 

And as the sun rose over Skull Island it was the King that James Conrad regarded with the thrum of hope in his veins.


End file.
